The Fellowship (21 page)

Harborview Trauma Center

Seattle

Speers stood outside Ellis’ hospital room, watching through the glass as a physician bent over her bed, holding a tiny flashlight between his thumb and forefinger. He tilted it up, left, and then right, watching as Ellis’ pupils followed the light. He straightened up, smiled and listened as she spoke. He was Asian, about five foot nine, with a clean-shaven, kind face.

Ellis did not look nearly as shiny and new. Her entire body was bruised. Her arms and legs were nicked up, as if she had walked through a sandstorm. The back of her head was swollen and bandaged, having received a number of stitches. Her bottom lip was busted
, and the expression on her face could only be described as bewilderment.

It was nearl
y noon. Speers had just arrived. When the call had come that Ellis was in a Seattle trauma center, he had been sure it was a mistake. He would have gladly wagered a month’s salary that Ellis and her sister were over at the Mayflower under the protection of Jack McClellan’s security detail.

Speers could not remember the last time he had traveled alone. He had
not just one federal agency at his disposal, but all of those in the American intelligence community. He typically traveled with staffers that coordinated his meetings, accommodations and transportation. Nearly any of the DNI’s employees would take his call at any time, and do virtually anything he asked of them. But when it came to this case – which now counted victims on both American coasts as well as Europe – he could count the number of confidents with full operational clearance on one hand. His own deputy director, Claire Shipmont, had zero visibility into the operation. President Eva Hudson was keenly aware, but was being purposely kept ignorant of the details for her own protection. Arunus Roth, who at this moment was probably drinking his 12
th
Red Bull of the day in the McLean office. Blake Carver, who was still half a world away. And the Brits, who had still shared very little intelligence despite Carver and Ellis’ in-person visit to London.

FBI Director Chad Fordham, the only other agency director with knowledge of the case, was scheduled to arrive shortly.

Local police had found the heinous Vashon Island crime scene in which three people had been murdered, and another in critical condition. Ellis had apparently been electrocuted and beaten. Thank God for Fordham. With one call, he had ordered a pair of local bureau agents to seal the crime scene. It had been far too late to contain the situation, of course. The mess Ellis had stumbled into was already the talk of the local police department.

Now the
doctor emerged from Ellis’ room and closed the door behind him

“You can see her,” the doctor
said, “but you have to go easy. She doesn’t even know who she is right now.”

“By that you mean…”

“Exactly what I said. She can’t remember her own name.  It’s a pretty bad concussion. The good news is that the chance of permanent brain damage is minimal. In cases like this, amnesia is usually temporary.”

Speers was beside himself. “Usually?”

“Usually there’s no memory of the blunt trauma that caused the concussion, and sometimes there’s a blackout window that spans a few hours or days before it happened.”

“
You don’t know Ellis,” Speers said. “She’s a combat vet.”

“Iraq?”

And D.C. too, Speers thought but didn’t say. He had managed to keep quiet the names of most the combatants that defended the capital in the Ulysses Coup. They were heroes, for sure, but they had also been forced to kill Americans to save the nation’s soul. The families of those Ulysses USA fighters weren’t about to forget so easily. Even now, the FBI had planted moles within a militia in South Carolina that was plotting revenge. 

“Don’t underestimate this,” the doc warned. “It looks like she was in one hell of a fight.”
The doctor opened the door to Ellis’ room. “Shall we?”

With the help of his cane, Speers got to his feet and
entered the room with the doctor close behind. “Look who’s here,” the doc said. “You recognize this guy, Haley?” Ellis said nothing. The doc turned back to Speers. “Five minutes, and not a minute more.”

He
shut the door on his way out. Speers pulled up a plastic orange chair and sat, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his legs. He didn’t know what to say.

“This is really weird for me, okay
? I’m Julian Speers. I’m your boss.”

“I don’t like
it here,” Ellis replied. “I need to go outside. Can we go outside? Right now?”

“
Later,” he said. “Haley, do you know why you came to Seattle? I need you to try to remember.”

She shrugged, clearly too exhausted to even try.

There was so much he needed to know. Had Ellis known Mary Borst’s mother would be in danger? Was she operating on a hunch, or had she seen something in Nathan Drucker’s work that led her to that conclusion? How did Sebastian Wolf fit into the picture?  The answers were locked away in the rafters of Ellis’ mind. 

He reached into his pocket, removed his phone, and pulled up a photo of Jenna Ellis that he had taken at the Mayflower Hotel just before heading to the airport. He handed the phone to Ellis and waited a moment as she looked at the photo.

“You know her?”

Ellis peered at it uncertainly. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

“That’s your sister,” Speers pressed. “Her name is Jenna.”

Haley handed the phone back. “
I want to go outside.”

Now
tears streamed down her cheeks. She clutched the sheets, pulling them to her chin, then up over her face. Speers sat on the edge of the mattress. He wiped the tears away with the cuff of his shirt, turning it so that his cuff links wouldn’t scratch her face.

He thought of his elderly neighbor back in Georgetown, Mrs. Tenningclaus, and her late husband who had suffered from dementia in the months before he died. In the early days, before he had to be confined to a facility that was skilled at keeping forgetful patients safe, Speers had seen him get so frustrated over his lack of memory that he was verbally abusive. Sometimes he would cry. Other times he would throw things.
Once, he had hit his wife in the forehead with an ashtray.

Until he had seen Mr. Tenningclaus’ slow, cruel deterioration, death by fire had been Speers’ biggest fear. Now it wasn’t even close. His fear
was not knowing who he was anymore. The thought was terrifying. It seemed worse than death. Like not existing at all. Seeing Ellis like this was unbearable. Was she still in there?

*

Speers went to a print shop near the University of Washington, where he personally scanned every page of the Nathan Drucker manuscript, as well as a set of handwritten notes he had retrieved from Ellis’ backpack. He then uploaded them to the mission cloud and ordered Carver to read them right away. Ellis couldn’t tell him what had led her to hop on a plane bound for Seattle to visit Ms. Borst, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with Drucker’s research.

Now he
sat in a corner of the hospital cafeteria with his ailing ankle propped up on an opposing chair. He ate from two heaping plates of Jello while reviewing the Vashon crime scene photographs that he had downloaded to his tablet computer. 

He clipped a facial photograph of the
dead perp who had been found underneath Borst’s suspended body. Then he uploaded it to a secure site where Arunus Roth could access it, tapping out a short message:
Give this creep a facial.

“Facial” was short for
3D Facial Recognition System, an invaluable intelligence tool that had first been developed by researchers at Technion, the oldest technology university in Israel, and had since been improved with the help of certain companies in Silicon Valley. He followed with photographic copies of the passports belonging to the two perps’, which he assumed were false. Finishing the image gallery was a pic of the tattoo on the perp’s shoulder, as the IC possessed a separate database that cross-indexed profiles with tattoos and birthmarks.

The most important image – those of two octagons that looked, to Speers’ eyes, identical to those found in the D.C., Rome and London murders – he uploaded for Carver’s eyes only.  Gory as it was, he also sent Carver a video clip of
Ms. Borst suspended by her wrists.

Carver continued to amaze him
. Within the first two minutes of studying Senator Preston’s wounds – the ruined wrists, the dislocated shoulders, the gashes across his front – Carver had correctly surmised the precise method of torture.  And here, in full color, was absolute proof.

He did not have time to send Carver a qualifying statement. His phone announced the arrival of Chad Fordham, who was, at this very moment, waiting for him in the lobby. Having eaten every
morsel of the Mediterranean pizza he had ordered, Speers left the tray on the table and made his way toward the lobby.

The
FBI director looked cold and pale and his head was drenched from drizzle. Fordham was only in his mid- 50s, but he maintained a “natural bald” look – the sides and back of his head were unshaven – that pegged him as a man from a different era.

Speers extended his hand. “Appreciate you coming.”

“How is she?” Fordham asked.

“Too banged up to tell me what led her here in the first place.”

“Are these the a-holes that did the senator?”

Speers spoke
in an elevated whisper. “We don’t know. But even if they are, they can’t also be the people who killed Gish. There are more bad guys out there.”

“Still can’t rule out Mary Borst as a person of interest.”

“It’s looking more and more like she was running scared. Her boss and her mother were on these animals’ hit list. She probably thought she was next.”   

“Agreed. I just wish we could find her.”

The intelligence czar consulted his facility map, then motioned toward a hallway that would lead them to the central tower. “The surviving perp should be out of surgery by now.” 

They came to an elevator
and went inside. Speers used the butt of his cane to push the button for the 11
th
floor.  He waited for the doors to close and then said, “Ellis doesn’t even recognize me.  If she had listened to me in the first place, she would’ve never ended up here.”

“You think someone
is targeting her?”

“All I know is she met with
Nathan Drucker, and he ended up dead. Then Ellis comes out here, and we’ve got three more bodies on our hands. A water taxi captain with a goofy name claims that he charged her 300 bucks to take her out to Vashon, then saved her life with the only weapon he had on the boat, a freaking flare gun.”

Fordham’s face lit up
. “Flare gun? I’ve always wondered what one of those would do to a person. Seems like they could burn a hole right through somebody.”

“
No such luck. It hit the a-hole right in the face, though.  Caught his beard and hair on fire. Captain Zack said the guy looked like an asteroid with legs when he ran out of the house.”

They took the elevator to the
11th floor. Fordham’s special agents were stationed outside the room. Two thick-necked studs in their mid-20s. They eyed Speers and Fordham warily.

“Can I help you?” the elder of the two agents said.

“I can see why you wouldn’t recognize me, but my friend here?” Speers motioned toward Fordham. “Seriously?”

Both men shook their head. “Some ID might make this go faster.”

“How about you go back to the Seattle field office and look at the picture of the guy plastered on the wall next to the president?”

By then Fordham already had his FBI badge
out of his jacket. A light went on in the talker’s eyes as he stood a little straighter. “Mr. Director, sir. I apologize.”

“
That’s not necessary. The FBI has 35,000 employees and at the end of the day, I’m just one of ‘em.”

The double doors opened. The talker stepped aside so that the surgeon could pass. Speers flashed his ID. “Director of National Intelligence
.” Then he took out the passport belonging to the assailant, Roberto Melfi. The man was balding and bearded, with a stocky-looking neck and face.

“Ah,” the surgeon said. “You’re here about the burn victim?”

“It’s the other way around, doc. He’s not the victim. He’s the bad guy.”

“
Well I hope force was really justified, because in addition to the burned face, fractured vertebrae and broken ribs, I had to remove what was left of his right eye.”

“
We need to talk to him. Is he awake?”

The doc stiffened.
“Did you hear what I just said? Your people really jacked him up. He’ll be lucky to make it through the day.”

Speers’ phone rang. He pulled up Eva’s mobile profile on his phone and showed it
to the doctor. It was Eva’s official presidential portrait.  “Okay, doc. You tell the president we can’t talk to a suspected terrorist.”